Unofficial news and tips about Google

January 12, 2012

Google's Black Navigation Bar Is Back

Google's attempt to simplify the navigation bar wasn't very successful. The menu released six weeks ago is no longer available and it has been replaced with the old black navigation bar.

I tried to see if it was just a temporary bug, but almost all the browsers I tested displayed the black navigation bar. The only browser that still displayed the menu was Chrome, but that was no longer case after clearing the cookies.

Google indirectly confirmed this change two days ago, when the screenshots from a Google blog post included the old bar.

Sometimes, when you try to simplify things, you end up making them more complicated. Navigation elements should be obvious and hiding them in a menu doesn't make them easy to find. The huge menu took more space than the navigation bar and made the homepage less attractive. Hopefully, Google will fix the navigation interface and release a better version.

89 comments:

I had the navigation bar until this morning. Now suddenly I have this stupid drop down menu again. It's a right pain in the backside not having the items along the top of the screen, one click away. But, as always, the new will just be foisted upon us, whether we want it or not.

The black bar may be a little ugly but it's way more functional than the big fat new grey one.I want space in my browser window to see what I am doing and the black one is good for that because it's so small in height. The other nice thing about the black bar is that it provides "one click" access to other Google products which is ideal. The new one required more effort.

One thing that would be nice is the option for users to set which items appear in the black bar as currently the ordering of the links changes depending on what Google product you are using.

I agree 100% with everything you said. For me the new navigation panel cut my productivity. It was nice for a while to see something new, but then it started to upset me. As someone with ADD, and is OCD about UI, I liked the old black bar WAY better. I think they should just give us the option to control the bar to how we would best put it to use. Either by changing its color to what we would like, or adding and rearranging links to what we use most. Also it would be nice if we had the option to add our chrome browser bookmarks some how. They have the tech and they already have our bookmarks if you use chrome. They should make that happen. Those improvements would increase my productivity. which is what google should be trying to do.

I never saw the bar in the UK, I tried to do the hack to see it yesterday but still got the black bar. I don't see the point of showing all the Google sites on the top bar, that's what bookmarks are for.

Why do so many people think the grey bar wastes space? The grey bar is mandatory for all designs, it just got more features in the new design. Switch to the black-bar design and you have your grey bar right below the black bar. Only that it isn't unified across services and doesn't include much more than the search bar.

This posting is completely wrong. It was never fully rolled out. It's been in and out and in and out in several different forms. Just today when I went to google.com in Chrome, I had a version of the new dropdown-style heading with the drop-down already pulled out. They are clearly still experimenting with different versions of it. The author should probably check more than one source. We all know that Google has gradual roll-outs and is always testing new things with small groups of users.

This posting is completely wrong. It was never fully rolled out. It's been in and out and in and out in several different forms. Just today when I went to google.com in Chrome, I had a version of the new dropdown-style heading with the drop-down already pulled out. They are clearly still experimenting with different versions of it. The author should probably check more than one source. We all know that Google has gradual roll-outs and is always testing new things with small groups of users.

Just because you don't have the new Google Bar, doesn't mean Google's killed it, it just means you're unlucky. Open an icongnito window and type in google.com/ncr and keep repeating, and sooner or later you'll get it.And the new Google Bar is fine. I don't understand your complaints. First, the old black bar takes up teo lines to display what the new Google Bar needs only one line for (Google logo + links to other Google services + search bar all in one). Second, who cares if the other services are harder to access on the new Google Bar? That's what bookmarks are for. The Google Bar is primarily for discovery of new Google services, and rightly should be tucked away under the Google logo until needed, not shouting in your face, "Look at me, I am distracting you from the content of the page by being black while the rest of the page is white!"

OK, great. So now give us the option to drag/drop the icons the way WE want them to appear or give us some sort of options screen to add/remove the services we use and in which order we want them to appear on the bar.

What are you talking about? The new Google Bar never rolled out completely. The only way anyone I know got a preview of it was with a cookie change. I still use the new Google Bar in my Chrome browser, and it works fine. Also, the new Google Bar doesn't take up more space!!! The got rid of a bar. How is that taking up more space? I find it gives more space for everything.

menu navigation might not be rocket science but it is not something that can be taken lightly. google probably has a large group of regular web users who are being consulted for usability of the design and functionality. and it would keep on evolving until they get it right.

I like the black bar, but want to be able to choose and reorder the items on it: I'd remove photos, sites, and search; and promote reader and news to always-visible status. I suspect each user will have their own preferences here.

Luckily, I never had this dumb new bar. I have some scripts on to make the black bar grey. So I worked with Google for years. If they make this shitty new bar official, then I hide it and use the address bar to switch between services, just like I use my profile page as begin page on Youtube, because the new(google plus) Youtube page sucks.

This black bar really sucks. Why does google always try to make things worse, harder to use. Whatever happened to "user friendly"?Where is my menu bar? There is an option to select it, but it doesn't show up. Why can't I put the tabs below the address bar? Good bye Google.

At this point, I wish they'd just let people chose one or the other. I was soooo happy with the shortly lived NEW new navigation bar. I loved the update - not I miss it. Since they have both, and Google is so good about so many other personalizations, why not just let us have both?